The Blood of Innocence
by writtenrhythm
Summary: The heart of a killer is a hard one. After brutally murdering three of the COG's most prized doctors, Clarissa Rogers is thrown in The Slab to rot along with the effluent of humanity. Fighting to survive with the worst of the worst, she struggles to untangle the woven threads of her past, and the mystery of her imprisonment.
1. Chapter 1

Name: Clarissa Rogers

Age: 27

Birth date: Unknown

Birthplace: Unknown

Crime: Three Counts of Murder in the First Degree

Sentence: Three Consecutive Life Sentences without Parole

Penitentiary: Coalition Prison Service Establishment Hesket; aka, 'The Slab'

Side notes: Prisoner suffers from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Pending psychiatric evaluation.

Treat with utmost caution and vigilance.

* * *

They should have killed her.

That was the usual treatment for criminals of her caliber. Two bullets between the eyes and a brand new home six feet under. Of course, to do that they'd have to call in a firing squad, and those in charge wanted to keep this little 'incident' quiet. One midnight trial later, and a warning from the head honcho to her captors that they hadn't actually seen shit, and here she was. Hell hole sweet hell hole.

The menacing walls of The Slab pierced the inky black sky. Moving the prisoner was done under the cover of dark – less witnesses that way. The monstrosity of thick stone gates and search lights engulfed her, the same way the cold, silver handcuffs engulfed her wrists. Quickly and silently, with only a bit of pain on each involved party. The guards quickly ushered her indoors as the storm raged outside.

She watched lightning crack across the sky, wondering idly when she'd see it again. Probably never, if the COG got their way. The bright, flickering lights reflected across her grey eyes as a guard shoved her between her shoulder blades and through the front door of the prison.

Immediately, the outside world was shut off.

Scurrying little feet ran the course of the walls – probably rats. A leaky pipe dripped slow drops of water onto the floors, and she was idly amazed that such a place had running water. It would probably be toxic to drink, but it was the thought that counted. The same guard who had shoved her reached out and yanked her to a stop by her elbow. He cursed under his breath, looking around for someone who wasn't there.

"Damnit, where is he? 'Meet by the front gates at midnight'. How fuckin' hard is that?" he growled, tightening his grip on the prisoner. She didn't complain, didn't even flinch, although the pressure was bound to leave bruises. It wasn't as if she hadn't suffered through worse.

The guard on the other side of her sighed and shook his head. "Give him a minute, Williams. He's probably overseeing a removal of a dead body or some shit. These animals will all kill each other at the drop of the hat."

"That's true," Williams replied, grinning to himself in sick, twisted humor. Although the room was dark, she could still see his black and rotting teeth. He nudged her in the side. "I'll bet they'll just love you. I'm sure they'll get some perverted rapist as a cell mate for ya'. Wouldn't be no less than you deserve, you-"

Whatever she was, she never found out. He had made a deadly mistake as soon as he'd gotten close enough to touch. She didn't appreciate people getting that close, and she'd make damn sure he'd never do it again.

She slammed her forehead against his face, feeling the cartilage break against her thick skull. He wheeled backwards, clutching his nose. The surrounding guards yelled, propelled into action as she kicked her booted foot against another's knee, slamming the joint back against itself and breaking it. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, but she lunged and kicked and bit at anyone dumb enough to try and hurt her.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as the adrenaline of the fight overtook her. If she was destined to go down, she'd make sure she'd take as many of the guards down with her. That's what she had been trying to do when she'd killed the doctors. She'd expected a quick death, not some shit about serving time in a prison cell. If only one of the guards would pull the pistols she saw holstered on their hips, it would all finally be over for her.

One of the guards grabbed her from behind, and she bucked like a spooked horse. He yelled for backup as she screeched a wordless, horrifying noise that sounded like someone had stepped on Satan's foot. Another guard grabbed her from the side, and she struggled against the both of them, kicking and biting for all she was worth. Panting heavily, she finally got her teeth around an ear of a guard and bit down hard. Blood squirted into her mouth and a chunk of flesh came away as the guard recoiled. She spat his earlobe onto the ground at his feet.

Suddenly the room flooded with light as someone flicked a switch. Like rats found when sewer man-hole was removed, they froze in place as the low buzzing of electric-fueled light illuminated their skirmish. Three new guards entered the room, guns drawn.

"What the hell is happening here?" the trio's leader demanded to know, training his sights on the woman cuffed and bleeding in the arms of no less than four equally broken and bleeding guards.

"The prisoner got a little rambunctious, sir," one of the guards said – the one with the torn-up knee. He was leaning unsteadily against a rough stone wall, looking a little worse for wear. One hand rested unsteadily on his gun.

Williams gripped her shoulder with one hand, while the other clutched at his face. "By Bose!" he whined, his voice coming out thick and muted. "She broke by bose!" His nose was bleeding profusely, and was now hanging crookedly against his cheekbones.

"Shut _up_, Williams!" another guard snapped. The side of his face and neck was dark with slowly congealing blood, with the lower half of his ear missing. Apparently he was the former owner of the cherry-sized drop of flesh lying on the floor in a small puddle of blood.

The female prisoner was in the middle of all the chaos, looking completely and thoroughly unabashed for her behavior. Someone had cocked her on the side of the face, where a fast-emerging bruise was flowering. Her lips were coated dark with blood – had she _bitten_off the guard's ear? Her grey eyes wandered over his body, and, finding him insignificant, continued to wander to the two warders behind him. As she turned her head, Jarvi caught sight of a ruby-red studded earring occupying her earlobe. Her hair was sheared off to hang close to her scalp, and was black. He suspected it was dyed that way when he saw the barest fleck of blond roots peeking out. Where she had gotten hair dye - of all things - in the middle of the war, was beyond him.

He cleared his throat once, putting away his gun but keeping it in reach. "Understandable," he said, not looking at the one called 'Williams'. He had a feeling he might punch him if he did. "Okay, so the political jargon. As of," he looked at his watch, "twenty-five hundred hours, prisoner 027451-GX exchanged hands from custody of the COG, to custody of the Jacinto High Security prison. This exchange was overseen by Warden Nikolai Jarvi." He said his own name without inflection, jerking his head for the two warders behind him to grab the prisoner.

They approached cautiously, one slightly behind the other. The prisoner gave them a disdainful look, but didn't fight them as they grabbed both of her arms tightly. She didn't look pleased at their touch, but after eyeing the roomful of guards and warders, she deemed the odds a bit too out of her favor. The two warders herded her forward, while the rest of the guards tended to their plethora of wounds. The one with only half an ear swiped his hand down his blood-soaked neck, mumbling something that sounded like, "Psycho Bitch…"

Jarvi was strangely reassured by the woman's absolute hostility. With only a handful of warders and forty two – well, forty three, now – inmates, the prison was ran by the criminals. There would be no help coming from them after she was deposited in with the riffraff. If she couldn't hack it, well….Jarvi had seen firsthand what had happened to those deemed weak within the prison walls. There was a reason 'The Slab' had a two-year life expectancy.

Of course, a person didn't brutally murder three men without being _Nails_, as in _Tough As_.

As soon as they entered the twisting labyrinth of tunnels leading down to the inmate quarters, the barking and howling reached a fever pitch. The warders employed over a dozen guard dogs, each meaner and nastier than the last. They were kept sanctioned off by a series of electronic doors that could be opened to attack the prisoners if need be. It was as if the dogs could smell the tantalizing scent of fresh meat being brought into the prison in the form of the young woman.

Jarvi wasn't sure what he expected her to do, but it wasn't what she did. The corners of her blood-red lips curved upwards in a mockery of a smile. "Ah, shit," she said. Her voice was low and icy cold with a slight accent – the voice of a killer. Suddenly Jarvi didn't have any problems imagining her murdering any idiot crossing her path. "Looks like y'all got Fido out to greet me."

Jarvi grunted noncommittally under his breath. "They're not exactly puppy-dogs," he almost growled in warning, waiting for the door behind them to shut and lock before opening the next one. The metal grated floor _clinked_below their footsteps as they turned to go to the supply room. It was startlingly bare, with only a small pile of sheets stacked on a shelf. They had arrived for the prisoner earlier in the day.

Jarvi picked up the small package, effectively clearing the room of everything but the warders and prisoner. He nodded for the trio to head back out before him, turning and waiting on another electronic gate to open. Reaching into his pocket and pulling a knife, he slowly and silently slipped it between the stack of sheets in his hand.

The population of The Slab was the effluent of humanity – the worst of the worst. Their crimes were hard to imagine – a schizophrenic who had sliced, cooked, and eaten his mailman, a paid assassin who'd taken out hundreds of targets before finally getting caught, even an Indie terrorist left over from the Pendulum wars. A few were in for horrific crimes done to women; heinous, sickening crimes that turned Jarvi's stomach just to think of them. The rest were sexually frustrated, immoral bastards. Just because she had the unfortunate luck to be sentenced to spend the rest of the life in here didn't mean she didn't deserve to be safe.

Jarvi pondered where to put her. Obviously not down the psych ward – another body down there would drive them more insane. Plus, although her records said she suffered from severe psychological scars, Jarvi couldn't see a difference between her and half of Sera. The ones down in the psych ward were too insane to know they were insane. She acted like the psychologist's assessment of her was a blessing – a way to explain off any horrid actions she might perform. Being labeled 'psychologically unfit' gave her an excuse to act like she didn't give a damn about the world anymore – which, in truth, she didn't.

That left the cell-block. She'd be stuck mixing with the general population of scum bags. Jarvi had no doubts that she was tough enough to withstand the worst of the inmates one-on-one, but eventually she'd be caught flat-footed, or they'd get a big enough gang to take her down. That meant she needed someone to watch her back, someone who wouldn't put up with the bullshit that happened in a predominately male prison.

Jarvi's thoughts wandered to prisoner Marcus Fenix – formerly Sergeant Marcus Fenix with the 26 Royal Tyran Infantry. Almost a full year ago he'd broke orders to go rescue his father during the battle for Ephyra. He'd left the battle with some key component to the Hammer of Dawn – a weapon of mass destruction that the top brass were depending on to turn the flow of the battle. The COG lost the battle and Ephyra, a lot of men lost their lives, and Marcus Fenix lost his freedom. As soon as he'd returned to COG territory, he'd been arrested for dereliction of duty and court-marshaled. Apparently he'd still had some friends in high places, because he only landed forty years in this shit hole. Anyone else would have garnered a firing squad.

Despite spending a year with the world's worst humans, Marcus still conducted himself the way a gear would. He didn't tolerate any antics from the other inmates. He worked hard and diligently, growing food in the gardens and processing the myco-fermenters when needed. His moral compass had never once wavered off of true north. Besides, he already had a girl waiting for him on the outside, Lieutenant Anya Stroud. He wouldn't go fooling around with the new girl. He'd keep an eye out for her, even if she didn't want him to. He had those protective instincts working overdrive for anyone who needed him. Jarvi didn't know if he got his rocks off playing the hero shit, or if that was just the way Marcus was brought up, or if that was just the way all gears acted, but it came in damn handy right now.

"Hold," one of the warders instructed the girl. She took one more step out of belligerence before dragging her feet to a stop. The warders never went into the cell-block, not unless they wanted a slow and painful death. The inmates ran the floor, and everyone knew it. Once she entered the cell-block, she'd be on her own.

The two warders stepped back as Jarvi walked forward with the keys to the handcuffs. He shifted the stack of sheets to one arm – careful not to let the knife drop out – before inserting the small silver key in the socket. They clicked softly before going slack on the girl's arms and coming off in his hands. She shifted her hands around front and rubbed at the angry, red welts on her wrist. He handed her the pile of bedding before stepping back.

"When the door in front of you opens up, walk through it and follow it down to the cell-block. Press the green button to the side of the door, and we'll unlock it once we lock this door behind you. You are assigned to cell-39." He thought about what else to say. "There are gardens and myco-fermenters on the floor. The inmates are responsible for growing their own food. You don't work, you don't eat."

Here, he could be shooting his own feet out from under him, but he felt the need to warn her about what exactly she would be getting into once she walked through those doors. So sue him – women were treated differently than men. Especially after the war began and humanity was looking extinction in the eyes. To squander the life of a fertile woman – even a woman who had killed three people in cold blood – seemed like an almost unbearable waste. "Once you walk through those doors, you play by their rules, alright?" He felt like he was a father giving his kids last minute advice before starting school for the first time. "Just….good luck."

She stared at him with those piercingly cold, grey eyes. The corner of her lips pulled upwards in not quite a smile, but not exactly a grimace. "Aye," she said, her islander accent heavy in her voice. "Maybe it is them you should be saying 'good luck' to, no?"

Jarvi didn't know how to respond, so he took a large step back behind the door and flipped the switch. The door groaned shut, the electric locks spinning and whirring away until nothing short of a pissed off beserker would be able to get through. Still, she continued to stare at him through the small viewing window, her expression frozen into that not quite emotionless gaze. He felt unsettled as he clicked the next switch, opening the next gate for her to walk through. When the door opened, finally she turned and headed through it. Her stride was slow and deliberate, but not hesitant. Maybe she really was crazy enough to make it in The Slab, but Jarvi doubted it.

He wondered just how long it would be before he dragged out her rotting, mottled corpse.


	2. Chapter 2

(Except taken from the medical journal of COG Doctor Karen M. Warbeck.)

Notes: Subject is responding as expected to treatment. Treatments will continue as planned. Side-effects include complained headaches and temporary mood swings. Continued evaluation is needed to decide the severity of these side-effects and their relativity to the medications.

Side note: At the risk of interjecting my feelings onto the test subject, I can't help but wonder if we're crossing some moral boundaries here. Yes, this new medication could have miraculous results for those who take it, but at what cost? Where do we draw the line in the sand?

* * *

Clarissa watched the door slide open in front of her. For a moment, she had been trapped between the two steel walls, unable to go forward or back. She didn't panic, however. Even if the warders had 'forgotten' about her and left her to die, trapped between the two steel walls of death, she wouldn't have minded.

Much.

Her expectations of humanity had diminished over the brutal years, until there was nothing left. She'd seen the worst of the worst, and was now about to join their ranks. Even if the solid steel door before her remained firmly shut, perhaps the universe would be paying her a favor. Perhaps she would die before one of these bastards made her wish she were dead.

Alas, it was not to be. The heavy locks protested as a rush of electricity sparked them to life. They clunked and whirred quietly, spinning into their allotted places and opening a new world to Clarissa – the world of The Slab.

As the door slid open, a breath of not-so-fresh air hit her full in the face. There was the prominent scent of raw sewage dispersed in the breeze, tinted with the heavy aroma of body-odor and sweat. Apparently, hygiene wasn't high on the list of importance in a male prison. The rank scent of myco-fermenters hard at work floated through the air, staining the fragrance of overturned soil and growing plants. It appeared the gardens were down on the cell-block also.

The prison wasn't quiet. There was the sound of more than one person snoring, the sounds overlapping into a rumbling cacophony of noise. Someone was mumbling to themselves close by, and she caught the stifled sound of murmured curse words from a number of different voices. The hallway extended into oblivion, the endless rows of cells upon cells disappearing from sight into the darkness. She scanned both side of the dirty, smelly hallway – the floors coated with thick dirt and cracked tile - before taking her first step into Cellblock 38.

Her pre-requisitions of a smudged white wife-beater gleamed softly in the darkness. For a second, no one noticed the stranger in their midst. Then, as the heavy steel door slammed back into place behind her, gradually the inmates took notice of their new bunkmate. A few wandered out to the wide-open doors of their cells, gazing lazily out at the front gates. "Oh, shit!" someone close-by said, but she couldn't see who in the darkness. "It's a chick!"

That garnered attention from all within earshot. Inmates flew out of their cells, jostling awake those dozing on broken-down cots. A wave of excitement and curiosity flew through the room as everyone crowded around for a look at the new inmate.

Clarissa watched all of this with a disinterested gaze, slowly scanning the dirty, sweaty, and hairy faces of her new neighbors. None of them in particular stood out as her grey eyes flashed throughout the room. Someone hit a power switch, activating the overhead lights, and cellblock 38 came into clearer focus.

She almost preferred it in the darkness. The added light drove her attention to things unseen; a splash of blood down the side of one wall where a recent fight had broken out; a carved out, stinking latrine; a pile of fly-coated dog shit near the door. The prisoners all wore the same sweat-stained, off white wife-beater t-shirts with baggy, black pants. Their boots were the standard-issue COG boots – thick, double-soled black boots with a high, waterproof tongue. Despite their similar uniforms, the prisoners were as different as could be. Their skin tones ran all the way across the color palette – from a dark, heavy black, all the way to a bloodless pale and everything in between. Other's had adornments on their person; a homemade belt here, a scrappy headband there – anything that could help determine social order.

"Yo' man," an unfamiliar voice called out above the others. "Get Merino. He'll wanna see this shit."

A broad-shouldered man maneuvered his way through the sea of inmates. His insipid lips curled upwards in a leer as his eyes traveled her body freely. "Damn," he said, the rows of prisoners quieting behind him as he spoke. "We must have been good little boys this year!"

The crowd that had amassed behind him crowed with laughter. It was unlikely that these men had ever done anything 'good' in their lifetimes. She decided that the inappropriate amount of laughter for the unfunny joke meant that this 'Merino' was somebody in this pack of criminals. After all, one was always supposed to laugh at the bosses' jokes.

She didn't move as Merino took a few steps closer, licking his lips hungrily. She mentally compared it to the way a coyote licked its chops before a meal. Her chin lifted as he drew nearer, so she could look him in the eye. He stopped just in front of her, not touching her – not yet. His head cocked to the side in a flirtatious manner that Clarissa was sure had gotten him laid hundreds of times before the war. "Damn, baby….what's your name?"

She didn't answer – didn't give any indication that she had heard him. She just continued staring him down with that bloodless steel gaze of hers. "She deaf as well as dumb!" Merino exclaimed, narrowing his dark eyes. "Hey, bitch, you hear me? I asked you what your name was." He reached out to grab her.

Before anyone could move, Clarissa grabbed his thick wrist and spun it around his back, yanking all of the joints in his arm the wrong way. He turned with the attack - an instinct born of the pain blossoming from shoulder to hand. In the next split second, Clarissa pulled the knife that she had seen Jarvi place between the sheets and jabbed it between Merino's shoulder blades. The point of the knife was sharp enough to cut through the sweat-stained shirt Merino was wearing, and to slice through the barest amount of flesh.

Clarissa felt Merino's heartbeat through the tip of the knife. She could envision the vertebrae in his spine, and the gaps between them. She could almost feel the way the knife would cut through the oh-so-sensitive spinal cord, rendering him immobile and helpless – as she had been helpless all of those years. He wouldn't have long to suffer, as she would continue pressing the knife through his back, to the dark hole where his black heart beat.

Lucky for him, however, she didn't kill on the first date.

"_Don't touch me_…" she hissed in his ear, letting the knife press harder against his back. He struggled out of her grasp, and she let him go. He was much bigger than her, anyway, and she wouldn't have been able to hold him much longer. Backtracking a few steps, she could tell that his arm pained him, although he wouldn't show that weaknesses in front of the pack.

Easily flipping the knife around her fingers, she spoke. "The first man who touches me gets a broken jaw. The next? He wakes up wearing his junk as a pendant." Her grey eyes flashed around the group as she spoke. Most of the group was watching her hand work the knife; how the sharp blade easily found its way through her fingers time and time again, never once nicking her. The rest were staring hard at her, wondering just what to make of the new 'chick'. At least their eyes were on her face, and not traveling down her body like before. "The next man – and every man after that, for that matter – doesn't wake up at all. Do I make myself _clear?_"

No one answered her, which was the response she was anticipating. No one expected a woman to be able to play hard ball with the rest of the boys, and it always surprised some when she managed it. Spinning the knife around one more time and catching it, she stepped forward. She glared at the row of men in her way. "_Move_," she growled threateningly.

Hesitating briefly, the sea of men parted for her. She gripped the knife tightly in her fist – a warning to all around her. She didn't look at anyone else as she waded down cell-block 38, instead scanning the grey concrete walls for cell numbers. 27…30…34…ah, 39…she thought to herself.  
The iron bars of the cell-door greeted her menacingly. The cell was tiny, with a broken down, bare cot as a bed and a malfunctioning sink and toilet. Clarissa wondered idly if she stood in the center of the room and stretched out her arms, would she be able to touch both sides of the cell. She started to unfold the measly pile of bedding for her cot before a deep, rumbling voice interrupted her.

"You don't want to do that," the mysterious voice said. Clarissa spun around, knife held out warningly. Her eyes first jumped to the cell-door, but she found no one there. Still wheeling with adrenaline, she looked through one 'wall' of metal bars and into the next cell. A pair of icy-blue eyes met her own. "It gets cold enough in here to freeze the balls off a corpser. Cover yourself with the sheets – not the cot."

Clarissa froze for a second, staring at him with that same expressionless gaze. Surprisingly, the man returned it just as well. "I think I can manage sleeping without screwing it up, thanks," she said tonelessly.

The man shrugged, raising a hand to his head. There, he removed a torn do-rag and ran a hand through his dark brown hair. "Your call," he said, his voice deep and gravelly. He replaced the do-rag and turned from her, resting his bulky frame down upon his own cot. Clarissa was vaguely surprised when it didn't collapse with the weight.

She turned her gaze to her cot, reluctantly tearing back the sheet she had just laid down. She slid her body between it and the stained cot. She positioned the other one as sort of a make-shift pillow, wrapping the ends of it around her scalp to keep her head warm. In southern Tyrus she never needed to worry about staying warm. The triple digit temperatures both night and day did that for her. It was one of the _few_benefits of living in a COG farm.

She closed her eyes, but didn't dare fall asleep. Her fist clenched tight around the hilt of her knife, she wondered how long it would be before some asshole inmate made the mistake of wandering into her cell.

She didn't have to wait long to find out.

* * *

**Author's Note - Thanks so much for reading/reviewing! Hopefully you're enjoying it so far? Don't worry - plenty more Marcus to come in the next chapter! :D**

**Reviews are always appreciated! Remember to feed the muse on you way out, please! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

(Response to 'Dr. Karen M. Warbeck's Journal Entry' by Dr. Richard A. Malone.)

Karen, I'm only going to say this once, so listen. _Get your emotions out of the research._ You said it yourself; this drug could have miraculous effects for the whole of humanity. We don't know what's in the imulsion that's turning women infertile, but we may have figured out a way to reverse it. With the risk of extinction this high, we _need_this drug.

Continue treatments as planned on subject 041-X2. Just…make sure there are no more _incidents_along the way.

* * *

The flame flickered into existence, fighting back the gloom and doom of the prison. Head Warden Jarvi placed the match against the tip of his cigarette, breathing in his dose of smoke and nicotine. He shook the match out, watching the wisps of smoke flicker and curl through the air. He found it strange, in those rare moments of clarity one was bound to get after hours of little to no sleep, how something as deadly and dangerous as fire could succumb to the barest of breaths. How, with very little effort, flame could grow unwieldy and out of control, or it could wink out of existence. Deadly beautiful, but gone in an instance.

He hoped it wasn't a metaphor for his newest inmate.

He watched the cell block from the catwalk hanging above the inmates. The rest of the guards had headed back into the control both to take a nap, but Jarvi wanted to know how this new prisoner – Clarissa J. Rogers – would be accepted into the folds.

So far, she hadn't failed to deliver.

She'd already stuck a knife in Merino's back, threatened to kill anyone who touched her, and exchanged words with Marcus Fenix. He was impressed by merely watching her, but he had to remind himself that her presence would only be temporary. After all, The Slab had only a two year life expectancy for a reason. Plus, she was their only female inmate in the history of the prison. It would have been kinder for the COG higher ups to just shoot her.

Sticking his cigarette back in his mouth, he fumbled with the file in his hands. The pages had that silky feel that came with being used and reused time and time again. Paper was a precious resource, a commodity. It was bleached and reused until it was falling apart, and then was recycled for toilet paper. Even now Jarvi could see the ghost of words on the paper under the fresh ink.

It was Clarissa's file. He had glanced through it earlier, but was hoping to find something he had overlooked. The first page held basic information; name, height, weight, basic physical description. Most was marked 'n/a' for not available. That wasn't a rare occurrence. After E-day, many files and databases had gone missing, along with billions of people. Information like that had become as scarce as the paper it was printed upon.

He continued flipping through the file, finding most of it inked out with a black marker. Brow furrowing with confusion, he held the flimsy paper to the filtered light, trying to make some sense out of the covered data. Finding his attempts fruitless, he went back to reading what little wasn't marked out. What was inked out was a mystery onto itself. Who would take that big an interest in a single woman to pick out what was classified, and what wasn't? 'Classified' meant sweet fuck-all after E-day. The fact that her file was kept under wraps was more than a little disconcerting.

He almost deemed his searching pointless and went to return the precious papers to the file, when something caught his attention. It was a small detail, but his wife always said the devil lurked in the details. They didn't have a birthplace listed for her, but there _was_a place listed for her transfer. Ashton. Jarvi thought hard, trying to dredge up any information he knew about it. He remembered it was a small city in southern Tyrus, a huge vacation destination back before the war.

It was also completely, totally demolished after E-day.

Jarvi stared at the paper, trying to see if he had read it wrong. No luck – she had definitely come from Ashton. "That can't be right," he muttered to himself. There was nothing left in Ashton except rubble and grubs, yet the file told him that was where the murders were convicted, where her trial took place, and where she was transferred from.

Chalking it up to some sort of clerical error, he flipped the file shut and headed into the back room where the rest of the guards waited. Still, there was a niggling warning in the back of his mind that told him Clarissa Rogers was much, _much_more than what met the eye.

* * *

Clarissa stared into the dim light, barely breathing as someone opened her cell door. Her fist clenched her knife tight as she mentally prepared to fight for her life. The hollow _thunk_of boots against concrete echoed quietly in her small cell as the intruder approached. He took one step, two, before she attacked.

She leapt off of her bunk, the flimsy sheets tangling around her legs before ripping. She let out a war cry as she tackled the dark figure in her room, slamming him against the cell bars. The knife fit snugly against his neck, pressing threateningly against the skin covering his jugular. Captured with bloodlust, she almost missed the way his hands were thrown in the air in surrender and his pleas for mercy.

"Shit, girl, I'm sorry, alright?" he asked, and she watched a drop of sweat make its way down his dirty, black skin. "I wasn't gonna try nothin', just wanted to talk. That's it, I swear it!"

She stared at him with those cutting, steel-grey eyes. She didn't loosen her grip upon her knife, or her clenched fist against his chest. "Talk," she reiterated. Although her tone was crystal clear, he knew he wasn't imagining the slight condescending note. "Is that what you kids are calling it nowadays?"

The cell door clinked open again, and Clarissa was torn between attacking the intruder at her fingertips, or turning and protecting her back. Protecting herself from the unknown won out, and she wheeled around, looking for the second invader.

The man was tall, a lot taller than herself, and broad with muscles. He was dressed in the typical prison uniform of white tank and black cargos, but somehow they looked a lot better on him than anyone else she'd seen, or maybe it was the fact that his clothes were actually _clean_. He wore a handmade, black do-rag covering his hair. His crisp, cerulean gaze warred with her own when he spoke. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said. Clarissa couldn't tell if he was speaking to the intruder or herself. "Blood is a pain in the ass to get off the concrete."

She flicked her eyes between the two men, watching disinterestedly as the black man readjusted his clothes where she'd grabbed him. "Damn, a brotha can't do nothin' in here no more…" he muttered, giving her a reproachful glare. She flinched toward him, feigning an attack, and he fell back against the cell bars in fright. "Dude, I ain't hurting you!" he pleaded, until he realized she wasn't planning on killing him.

If she was anyone else, she would have rolled her eyes. As it was, she settled for flipping the knife closed and picking up the bed sheets that had fallen to the ground. "You said you were here to talk," she said coolly. "Go ahead."

The 'brotha' rubbed his throat uncomfortably until she reminded him of his purpose. He grinned widely, showing off a mouth of faux-gold teeth, some missing. "Right on!" he cheered, joyful now that he knew he wasn't in immediate danger. Throwing out his arms, he performed a deep bow, bending at the waist. "Good evening, Madame!" he called theatrically. "My name is Antoine, and I be the official welcome wagon of this shit-hole!" The dirty, cracked glasses he was wearing slid to the tip of his nose, and he slid them back on with one finger.

She cocked an eyebrow as Antoine rose out of his bow. He seemed entirely too cheerful for someone in prison. Unsure what to say, her gaze unconsciously floated to the only other person in the room, who was watching the entire debacle like he was waiting for the punch line. She said the only thing that came to mind: "You have a welcome wagon?"

"Damn right!" Antoine interrupted, looking like the cat who caught the canary. "Now, you newbies gotta learn them rules! You know, if you wanna live for any extent of time in here." He frowned slightly, and Clarissa wondered how many people had died because of these 'rules'. "Rule number one," he continued, "Never, _ever_ask anyone what they're in for. If they wants y'all to know, they'll tells you."

Clarissa leaned against the wall, mentally filing away that bit of information. Antoine looked pleased with his captive audience, and rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Secondly, you don't wanna mess with Merino. " He shot her a look. "You already broke that rule. But, ya' sees, you be new, so you don't know the rules. Merino might let that slide. But then, if he doesn't, it doesn't matter, 'cause your ass be dead!" He gave a deep belly laugh at his joke.

"So, don't ask anyone why they're in prison, and don't piss Merino off," Clarissa repeated slowly. "Anything else?"

"Nah," Antoine said. "Just do your share of work, or you don't get fed. Hey, maybe you should work in the kitchens! You know, cause you a chick and all!" He laughed again.

"Right," Clarissa deadpanned. She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms in front of her. "So, Antoine," she said innocently. "Wanna tell me what you're in for?"

Antoine stared at her, stunned. He looked as if he was having difficulty deciphering if she was serious or not. He finally cracked an easy smile. "Ahh, I gots you! Luckily, I don't care if people ask me what I done did." He scratched the back of his neck bashfully. "You sees, I used to be a computer hacker. None of that stealing password shit – no, that's for kiddies. I'm talking some serious stuff. And, uh…apparently the COG don't like it when you hack into their super-secret computer system. I mean, c'mon! It wasn't like I was looking for secrets to sell to the UIR or nothin'. I just wanted to see if I could do it." He tapped his temple knowingly. "Ya' see, that's the secret to being a good hacker. Don't be in for the money, be in for the honor. Course, there ain't no computers worth hacking now, and there sure as shit ain't one in here!" He chortled again.

Clarissa eyed Antoine again, seeing him in a different light. He was apparently harmless, and a plausible source of information for her. All-in-all, a very valuable resource. Still, she hadn't forgotten about the strange man in the doorway. "What about you?" she asked, turning her gaze to him. "What are you in for?"

He stared at her, and for a second she was positive he wouldn't answer. Finally he widened his stance like he was preparing to delve some bad news, and spoke. "I used to be a COG soldier. I abandoned my post to go rescue my father during a battle. We lost the battle, and I landed in here."

Whatever she was expecting, that wasn't it. _Fenix…_ she thought suddenly, the name almost as familiar to her as Prescott's._Marcus Fenix_. The saga of the Emerald Star recipient rise and fall had been ticketed as hot gossip, and had spread across Sera by word of mouth.

He was a COG soldier. A Sergeant. And, in Clarissa's eyes, anyone associated with the COG was a brutish, horrendous monster. A monster that deserved to die.

She saw a flash of red before lunging out at Marcus, knife poised to kill.

* * *

**Author's Note: Thank you so much to those who reviewed last chapter! Sorry this update took so long; things have been pretty hectic, plus I've been working on the next chapter to my other Gears fic also. **

**Liked it? Didn't? What's up with Clarissa's past and Ashton? Is it really demolished like the COG said, or is there more than meets the eyes? How'd you guys like Antoine? And, most importantly, why does Clarissa hate anyone or anything associated with the COG? **

**Let me know what you think! Review please! :D**


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